


Something biting and giddy

by glacecherie



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Biting, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-24 03:03:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21092345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacecherie/pseuds/glacecherie
Summary: Travis' teeth press to his jaw.Nolan jolts like he's been shocked, and feels his cheeks go blotchy. Blotchier, he amends bitterly. Travis kisses him."Yeah?" He asks, and he sounds delighted. He pinches, and sucks the copper taste from Nolan's tongue. "That feel good, baby?"AKA: Travis is awful and was raised in a barn and Nolan definitely isn't into the whole vampire thing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be completed by Halloween but this seemed like a good place to end the first chapter. 
> 
> For literally purely atmospheric and worldbuilding reasons, it's set in the early 30s. ALeo because that's an era I've studied before and I have to use my degrees some where. 
> 
> Anyway, Travis Konecny said short king rights!

"You don't eat enough." Nolan says to him one night. The room he's set up for himself in the hayloft is decent enough. His profile is burnished from the lamp light.

Travis scrapes at the bowl of stew Nolan brought him out pointedly, knocking their knees together.

"I eat plenty, baby."

Nolan grits his teeth at the petname and doesn't think about the casual touches that are commonplace between them, the hand around the wrist, the way TK could absolutely hold him down, and he'd absolutely let him, the months long ache of it all.

He glances up, and Travis is staring at him.

"Nolan?"

"That's not what I meant." He says, breath shaking. "I didn't mean what I bring you from the kitchen."

Silence.

He could have planned this better. There's no easy route out, if Travis did decide to cut his losses, kill him as easy as he breathes. He'd have to go around him, down the ladder, out of the door, all with the tools strewn about down there.

The silence is almost eerie. It's raining heavy enough that from in here it sounds like radio static.

He flinches from a stray drop of water falling on him, and Travis' hand is balled in the front of his shirt before he can even blink, like he thought he was going to move. The most damning thing is how Nolan relaxes with it, doesn't feel scared from it. He _wants_. The petnames and casual touches, glances on his part at the sheer breadth of Travis' shoulders.

(Glances he's wondered if we're returned when he's alone in bed, when he's fucking up into his fist and picturing Travis' hands on his skin, chest, stomach, spreading his thighs apart and keeping them that way, hand slipping upwards -)

He lets go of Nolan's shirt, hand threading into his hair instead, and he twists just enough that it stings. Nolan glowers._ Come on_, he thinks. _Do it, come on, do something, you fucking -_

Travis kisses him.

-

When Travis arrived, battered and bruised (whole demeanour saying _don't ask_), looking for work, Nolan didn't think his mom would actually accept. He fetched her to the gate and eyeballed her over Travis' shoulder. Say _no_, he thought, like he could make her hear telepathically.

But his mom was realistic, and even if Nolan won't acknowledge his fucked over knee, and how sometimes he needs to prop it up close to the fire to get the pain to lessen, she would.

He was still bitter about it, though. Plenty of people drift further and further from the city, looking for jobs. They were just unfortunate enough to live on the very edge of a city, bridging the gap between true rural and shitty outskirt. Further enough out that maybe there'd be work, close enough to the big city to be able to hitch a ride to see their family once a month, if permitted.

Nolan had been able to see, logically, the appeal. He'd still scowled when his mom sent him with a plate of food and armful of blankets to the barn. Still gave short, one-word answers to how Travis apparently wanted his whole life story and wouldn't _shut up_, but weirdly compelled watching him set up a cot and hang his clothes over the beams. He'd finally stomped off after the third or so petname. Travis hadn't noticed he'd been pissed.

Nolan had hoped, meanly, that the barn was cold and draughty.

-

One night, when the rain had lashed against the windows and his mom made up a usual hot meal for him to take their newest addition, he'd whined, frustrated at himself, at the twinge in his hip, at the cold, the damp, anything. This had been happening for the entire fall, a routine, but he still hadn't been able to bite his tongue.

"Can't Ivan do it?" He grumbled, kicking the ground like a kid. The cat, tired from her mousing, opened a single yellow eye at him.

He'd known it was a stupid suggestion, because Ivan was all the way out in his cottage on the edge of their land, and there was no telephone. His mom had sighed as she down the kitchen table.

"Nolan -"

"Can't he come here?"

He'd only noticed how her actions had slowed to a careful stop in hindsight.

"No, he can't."

It'd sounded final, but he'd pestered.

"Why not, Ivan comes in here. Ivan raids the fucking cupboards!"

His mom'd looked up at him, eyes calm. Not even reprimanding him for swearing.

"Don't let him in."

The silence stretched, uncomfortable.

"I'll go at eight."

-

In the present, Travis pushes up his shirt, and it tickles where it untucks from his trousers. He grabs at his hair, and Travis grabs back at his. It's too long, his mother always says, and his only real rebellion is refusing to cut it. It seems worth it now, because Travis pulls and it sends a shock through him.

The familiar longing twisted into something more brutal and hungry. Over the summer he'd longed so much and hoped it would go away, but the fruit had ripened and fell from the trees, and the leaves had browned, and it had remained in him like shrapnel.

Fuck it, he thought. If Travis was slow-time this, fuck it.

He shifts like he's going to pin him, slinging a leg over him, but Travis sits up, so he just ends up straddling him. It's -

It's real fucking good. Travis has to crane his neck to kiss him, or he does until he pulls Travis' hand to his hair again. He doesn't process that he's done it until he's hauled down by it again, and their teeth click from the roughness. There's something to this, he thinks wildly, that's addicting. Something wild and untamed, closed around him like a fucking bear trap.

He knows, really. That Travis isn't entirely like him, that he doesn't only need their food to survive, but it's intoxicating not terrifying. He wants to provide that, wants the teeth or blade that open his skin, Travis' mouth following it, capable of real harm.

He shakes, and Nolan pushes his face into Travis' hand when it cups his jaw. He thumbs at Nolan's mouth and it takes so much of him to resist licking it, to play it cool, that he ruins it was whines.

"_Baby_..." Travis murmurs. It's too soft, and Nolan wants too much, but it's damp here. He'd helped out with the chickens all day, bitterly cold. His knee aches.

His mom is away at his aunt's for the week, siblings taken with her.

"Fuck off - "

Travis digs his fingers into Nolan's hips hard, just like he wants, and Nolan bites his cheek enough to taste copper. He wonders if Travis will like that, fucking his tongue into Nolan's mouth to taste it too. His chest feels like it's fizzing.

"Fuck off, not here, come on, come back with me. And before you ask, yeah, I'm sure."

Come back home, he adds in his head, and kicks himself for it, and feels like he's going crazy.

Travis still looks frozen.

Nolan leans in and presses their foreheads together. He rolls his hips, just the once, something slow and filthy. Something more eloquent than "I want you to fuck me up so bad" or "leave bruises I can worry at later, leave proof", or worse still "just lay with me".

"Please. Travis, please." His voice shakes. Staying still is taking every bit of willpower he has. "_Please_."

-

Once weekend, when their work was done, they'd gone to the city, hitching a ride with their closest neighbour. She'd talked the whole way about seeing old friends and her grandparents, and TK had chatted back the whole time. She'd bought a new hat, Travis liked the hat - it suited her, she'd been charmed, Travis boasted about how the hens have warmed to him and totally liked him best, and -

It was annoying in a regretably endearing kind of way. It was bitterly cold in the back of the truck, and there was a dog, refusing to give up room, but it was nice. They'd made eye contact in the wing mirror at one point, neither wanting to be the first to look away.

At some point, he'd fallen asleep, because Travis certainly hadn't covered him with his coat when he was awake. He wouldn't have let him.

Their neighbour had said goodbye to them at their shitty motel place, promising that they would get the bus back, and then she'd gone.

Nolan stared up at the outside of the place, the ugly neon sign that said vacancies, and the notice about having a romantic honeymoon suite that was an obvious lie.

"Couldn't we have crashed on someone's floor? Don't you have a friend here?"

"I have friends from here, but they all ended up like me, moving for work. I'm not about to trouble someone's mom only to turn up and for her to find she has to deal with you."

"Deal wi- here, take your stupid fucking coat back, asshole." He'd griped, punching Travis in the arm. "I don't need you looking after me."  
  
"You sure about that, sweetheart? I take you all the way here, get you the honeymoon suite, and you act like this? Ungrateful."

He'd shook his head, like it really was a personal grievance. Nolan wasn't sure if he was flustering or just plain outraged, so he did the only sensible thing and punched him in the arm again, then headed inside before the city smog could soak further into his clothes. Or Travis could punch him back.

(He has thankfully not gotten them the honeymoon suite, and instead a cramped double bed in the corner of a room with bare floorboards. There's a radio, and a lamp, and a window. For Travis, it probably counts as luxury, because he was raised by wolves or something.)

-

The next morning, Travis had gotten him shitty coffee in a paper cup, and a pastry he took half of. It'd had nothing on his mom's, but it had been warm, and they'd traded idle chatter as TK smoked on the stoop, even if he did so in an oddly detached kind of way.

"Do your family live here?" He'd asked, and Travis snorted.

"There's only my mom, and she wouldn't be seen dead here. Hates the city. She's further north, further away from this" He'd gestured around him, "and happier for it."

Nolan frowned.

"Don't you miss her?"

Travis hadn't answered, not the question anyway.

Instead, he'd suggested they move on, because they'd kept getting dirty looks for not looking like city slickers, words he used unironcially.

Nolan reckoned it'd been more the entirety of him.

Travis had flicked ash at him and stubbed his cigarette out against the wall.

-

They'd gone for a walk, got lost, got lost even more, got yelled at for stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, then eventually found a gallery.

"Find the most shitty art." Travis whispered in his ear as they stood in line for a ticket, very close, and Nolan felt himself shudder from their proximity. He'd been happy he could play it off to the cold weather.

The ugliest art turned out to be an geometric piece covered in gold leaf, stood alone in an empty room, and hadn't even been interesting-ugly, just the same shapes over and over. The ceilings were so high even their whispers to each other echoed, and opulently decorated as it was, it'd felt clinical and cold. They got weird looks for being slightly unkempt looking, obviously not the usual crowd. Nolan snickered defiantly when Travis loudly, purposefully, pointed out an ugly jesus oil painting.

-

The thing is, he could tell when Travis was getting hungry. He knew the folklore and shit off by heart. He knew that Travis is slinking - for lack of a better word - movements liquid, skulking. His eyes drag across Nolan when he's not looking, because he'd been able to feel them like a physical warmth. Maybe he'd been imagining it, but he doesn't think so.

He'd wondered, waking up the following morning, if when Travis was so happy to lend him things, his coat, his scarf, that it's less to keep him warm and more as a reminder to others that he's taken. That someone has staked a claim on him.

He'd shuddered, kept still as he could, because Travis was smushed up against him, nose squashed against Nolan's jaw, one hand curled into the collar of his sleep vest. If he'd tipped his chin up, Travis' mouth would be so close to his throat that it'd have been a tease, but he hadn't known if that'd be more of one for him or for Travis.

Would he have woken up and shaken Nolan awake and pinned him, something about him always untamed? Maybe he'd have sprang away from him and Nolan would've whined at the loss and Travis would realise he was so hard he ached and was gnawing his own mouth sore from trying to stop making any more noises.

Maybe he'd have called him _baby_ and been soft about it, kissing him quiet, given him his thigh to rub off against, right up until he felt the sting of his teeth. Maybe he'd nip at Travis' lip just to make him grip his jaw, make him be still. To just take it.

Just thinking of it had made his skin prickle. He'd rolled over resolutely and forced himself back to sleep.

-

Nolan takes him by the hand (the fucking hand) and all but drags him down the ladder, because the more his surety and enthusiasm and excitement seems to be trying to push out of his chest, the more convinced TK seems to be.

He's unbolting the barn door when Travis grabs his arm and turns him so that they can kiss again, a biting and harsh thing. His own fingers grip Travis' shoulder meanly, and he gets bitten for his trouble, lip stinging from it.

It's so hot he feels like he's burning. Hot enough that he's thankful it's raining and that he doesn't care when they both track mud all the way into the house.

They don't realise he's crossed the threshold until it's already happened, and they freeze, still clutching at each other. Nolan's hands are curled into Travis' shirt, trying to get him closer, and Travis has his lips pressed high against his cheekbone. They pause, and the prolonged contact makes it feel too tender.

The clock keeps ticking, the house doesn't burn around them, the folklore about Travis' eyes turning glassy and entrancing doesn't materialise.

As though sensing something, Travis starts to move again, nipping at his cheek and startling a noise out of him. When he tries to nip back, giddy, he gets pinned for his trouble, but properly this time. Proper enough that when Travis pulls him he slips down a few inches, hips flush with Travis' thigh.

It makes him whine, sudden pressure when it feels like he's been hard forever making him feel oversensitive and too seen.

"Good, sweetheart?" He asks, crooning. Nolan wants to say no, to shove him off for being so cocky, he wants to - not be so affected.

But it isn't the truth, because it all feels so good that he can barely process it, and Travis keeps kissing him dumb, and it's a struggle to even track what his hand are doing until the cold air hits his chest.

He shivers, and Travis bites his lip in the same spot again, sharper. His shirt is heavy with rain and sticking to him, and he should move but -

It feels good to be trapped like this, feels better when one of Travis' hands has moved to his ass, encouraging, and the other strokes his chest until he can brush a nipple with this thumb through he fabric. His teeth press to his jaw.

Nolan jolts like he's been shocked, and feels his cheeks go blotchy. _Blotchier_, he amends bitterly. The dual sensation is a lot. Travis kisses him.

"Yeah?" He asks, and he sounds delighted. He pinches, and sucks the copper taste from Nolan's tongue. "That feel good, baby?"

He laughs at Nolan attempting to be sullen and does it again, the same tone of voice again, the one that undoes him.

"Come on, don't hold back now, wanna hear you. Should have known you'd make pretty noises."

Nolan feels lightheaded.

"Fuck off -"

Travis looks delighted.

"You like that, huh? Being told you look good? That I've been looking at you so long and never seen you this beautiful?"

Nolan arched against him, helpless, because fuck it, maybe he did. He pushes Travis away, though, because whilst he he never wants this stop, his knee is still fucking him over from the damp. It pulls funny when he takes a step, and Nolan winces.

"You okay? Sit down."

"No."

"Stop being stubborn, dumb fuck."

Nolan glowers, because that isn't the point.

"I'm not, I'd just rather you lay me down, okay?" He says drily.

Travis' eyes bug out, the hand on his ass reflexively tightens, and Nolan rolls his eyes, because it was such a bad, cheap line.

"Ain't gonna argue with that." Travis mutters under his breath, and Nolan nearly bitches at him, something about low standards, but manages to hold his tongue.

He lets Travis wrap his arm around his waist to lean on him and walk him up the stairs, shoulders knocking together as they go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Travis back shakes under his hands, and Nolan nudges their faces together, making eye contact. It feels too intense to keep staring, so he closes his eyes again and kisses Travis chastely.
> 
> "Please, I need it, you need - please -" He tries again, nerves fraying, and there's perhaps two seconds after, silent, and -
> 
> Travis bites.

Somehow it feels more intimate when Travis pulls his clothes off, hands slipping underneath his shirt, then his undershirt to yank them off, until he's half naked with his trousers open, and Travis is looking at him like he's something precious. His hands twitch because he wants cover up the bits he doesn't like so much; the scars on his knee and collarbone, his stomach, but he just - doesn't.

He doesn't know why it's getting to him. It should be weird, feeling more exposed when he's still got some of his clothes on. It's the way he's being stared at, he supposes. The way he's staying just how Travis put him.

"Come _on._" He whispers, the attention on him feeling like a current under his skin.

"What, I'm not allowed to look at you now?"

Travis leans in over him, cupping his jaw, other hand petting his chest again, he kisses him softly, waits for him to part his lips to lick into his mouth, and it's so gentle that he wants to fuck it up.

Instead, Travis shucks his shoes and climbs onto the bed after him, propping himself up against the headboard. The he pats his lap, like that'll work. Like he's gonna fall for that.

(A flash of something else sears into his mind in the space of a blink - him sprawled over Travis' lap, the sting of his hand against his ass, his inner thighs, tracing veins. Softness before and after the hurt just makes him desperate. He wonders if Travis would dig his nails in and scratch. Maybe he just hold him still and talk him to coming, soft, deep kisses, telling him that he can come, _go on beautiful, let go_ -)

(It does, in fact, work. He wants to be messed up. So shoot him.)

-

Nolan doesn't feel the real sting of teeth until Travis holds his thighs apart and sinks inside him. Nolan groans, low, soft. He tips his chin up to be kissed, and arches his back, some desperate part of him going _get closer_ on a loop. He'd nearly gotten off from how long Travis spent fucking him with his fingers - not that he'd let Travis know as such - but this is something else.

It makes the angle change, and he jolts with the way it fucks a hurt little noise out of him. When Travis' hands wander to his chest again, stroking over his nipples, pinching, he can feel the tears prickling behind his scrunched up eyelids. It's overwhelming, too much and just right all at once.

He bares his throat and Travis makes a low noise, like his restraint is wearing thin, resting his forehead to Nolan's cheek.

He squirms, and Travis pulls his hair harder, finally starting to move, even if it is too slow, and Nolan feels like he's on tenterhooks. When he feels another nip against his jugular he whines, winding his legs around Travis' waist, clinging. He can't even feel shame over being this needy of more, because it feels so good, something shivery and warm just under his skin.

"Fuck, please -" He pants, unable to take it anymore. "Please, please, just bite, please. Make it count, drink, I don't know, _please_ -"

Travis back shakes under his hands, and Nolan nudges their faces together, making eye contact. It feels too intense to keep staring, so he closes his eyes again and kisses Travis chastely.

"Please, I need it, _you_ need - _please_ -" He tries again, nerves fraying, and there's perhaps two seconds after, silent, and -

Travis bites.

-

It's something else, the lightheaded rush of it all, how his entire body feels like it's alight.

He's not taking a lot at once, Nolan realises, like he's making it last through fucking him so good he's ruined for anyone else. He claws at Travis' back, and gets thrust into sharper for his trouble, a harder suck at his throat.

He whines and Travis pulls away to catch his breath. Nolan feels blood trickling sluggishly to his collarbone and can't even bring himself to care, because Travis looks so good and wild and rough around the edges in just the sort of way that makes him spread his legs a little wider.

"Fuck, you're easy." He says in wonderment, not mockery. His thumb touches where he's worried his lip sore, and he shakes hard enough it makes him clench up. Travis makes a punched out sound.

Nolan's hand moves to touch himself and Travis stops it, fingers wrapping around his wrist. It's gentle, pushed into the warmth of the bedding, but firm.

"You can do it without a hand on you, right baby?" He asks, licking a smear of blood from his hand. "You can just rub off on me all pretty and mess yourself up, right?"

He scowls, because he could, but it won't be the same, couldn't possibly be, but if Travis touched him just right -. If he fucked him harder and drank from him and touched his chest and bit him again -

Knowing it'll be good grants him little relief. He doesn't know which wires he has crossed that make being denied taste sweet.

Travis presses his tongue harder against where he bit, and it makes his nerve endings light up. He's barely pulling out, just some filthy grind, and he curls his hands in the bedding.

Travis kisses the corner of his mouth, and the way his hand digs into Nolan's hip puts his thumb a scant inch or so from his dick. Maybe if he begged he'd get something, but maybe he'll come quicker like this, knowing there will be fingerprint bruises on him, on his hips and thighs, proof. If anyone saw, it'd be obvious what he did.

Nolan shudders and it turns into full on shaking when Travis' hand traces a line up his stomach and strokes at his nipples again, not letting up this time. Sucking harder at his neck, his free hand holding Nolan's chain out of the way.

Everything feels too good and too much and he doesn't realise he's on edge until Travis mouths the wound closed and kisses him, the taste of his own blood metallic against his tongue.

He whimpers, pulling his wrist free to grab at Travis' bicep, curling into him. His thrusts are getting erratic, harder, and Nolan could cry from it.

"Please - fuck -"

Travis touches his cheek, and then his lips, and he tries to suck on them like it's a reflex.

"Jesus-" He breathes raggedly. "darling, c'mon, you can come, you can let go now, it's okay -"

Nolan squirms because everything hits too close to home, the softness, the way he's been taken apart physically, and he feels almost pathetic for how he really is gonna get off from it.

"Okay, okay, _fuck_ -" He chants, and opens his eyes to find Travis starting at him like he's the best thing ever.

"_Fuck_, you're so easy. You're so good baby, come for me, go on beautiful "

Nolan bites into Travis' shoulder to stop himself screaming, and he does as he's told.

-

Travis fucks him through it until the overstimulation starts feeling good again, no sharpness to it this time, just a low kind of buzz. He feels strung out.

"_Please_ -?" He says, asking for something, not sure what but needy.

Travis swears sharply, holding him, more points of contact than Nolan can count, and comes inside him.

-

Nolan sobs for real when he pulls out, and Travis shushes him sweetly. His teeth look like they normally do again, the only evidence he was bitten a dull ache in his neck, but it falls by the wayside with how wrong being empty feels when he's had something in him this entire time, and some bit of him hates that he can feel Travis' come slip out of him.

It's a testament to how screwed up they are for each other that Travis knows exactly what to do, because he swipes two fingers through it and pushes it back into him,

He clutches at anything he can reach, the pillow by his head, Travis' hair, and holds their faces close. It feels like the aftershocks will shatter him. He feels just like Travis said, easy. Easy and on display and used, a favourite pet, a doll.

"Thank you - fuck, thank you -" He pants, and Travis kisses him tenderly.

-

They lay in bed together after, Nolan squirming close until he has his head on Travis' chest. He'd cleaned him up so tenderly. Heated some water and fetched a washcloth. Nolan lay there feeling special.

"Baby?"

"Mm?"

"Just checking if you were asleep or not."

Nolan grunts. He's kind of was, but he's content enough.

"Why?"

"Was gonna sneak out if you were. You're squashing me."

"It isn't my fault you're small." He pauses, nearly biting his tongue off before caving "besides, you're staying. Nobody will be back until two days. Maybe more if my aunt invites my other aunt."

"Oh?"

"She's a gossip, knows everyone's business."

Travis makes a face.

"I'll try and avoid her if she ever comes here?"

"I'll hide with you if she does. She keeps mentioning that the two women who live in her apartment block never have any men around. She's obsessed with marrying me off."

Nolan can feel him tense up, moving so that he's laid next to Travis, not on him.

"You don't want that? No home, no wife, no -"

"Ugh. Please be quiet."

"I'm serious. You ain't gonna get that from me. "

"Never said I wanted that from you." He sniffs, well aware he sounds like a bitch.

Travis props himself up on his elbow, and Nolan feels unduly looked at.

"I mean it."

Nolan feels himself bristle.

"_Jesus christ_, pillow talk isn't your strong point. You don't think I know that? Is this build up to saying you're leaving?"

"Fucking hell, no. I'm not going to make you have a shotgun wedding or just...walk out. And stop looking at me like that."

Nolan huffs.

"There's already enough gossip that goes around farms anyway, you needn't add to it."

Realistically, he knows there will be rumors. Maybe not about them fucking, but there's always chatter about someone who knows someone in a boring, small-time scandal.

The only comfort is that Travis looks equally appalled by the idea of a wife and kids.

"So what? What's the worst that could happen? You're already stuck here in the middle of nowhere."

"Could leave. Move on, look for something else."

Nolan stares at him.

"But you won't."

Travis stares back.

"But I won't."

Nolan lets out a breath he hadn't even registered holding.

"Okay. I - _okay_."

He wants to say _promise_? or something equally saccharine, but he knows well when to bite his tongue. He pulls the bedclothes up and rolls onto his side, hauling Travis' arm around him, and when Travis sighs indulgently he's gracious enough not to comment.

Nolan falls asleep between one breath and the next.

-

Travis fetches coffee up to him in a chipped red mug after letting him waste his day sleeping. It's a nice gesture, he decides. Nice enough that he's not going to tell Travis that it's stale and he's not sure how long it's even been in the pantry.

He hasn't turned to dust in the light, or made away in the night, or - most importantly - delivered an ultimatum. It's anticlimatic, nearly, how everything is so normal. Normal right down to how Travis mocks his ability to sleep like the dead - then makes a pun about being undead - then won't shut up about how _technically_, "undead" is a misleading word, and _did he know that-_

"Please be quiet. Go and do your work. Leave me here to -"

"Sleep more?"

Nolan glowers at him, even if he's doing it to the back of Travis' head as he prods at the embers in the fire grate.

"Maybe. You don't have to do that."

Travis looks at him over his shoulder, and Nolan looks at his hands, and how the tips of his fingers are blackened from the charred edges of the wood. If he touched him now it'd leave behind marks. It makes him feel giddy and daunted all at once.

"Maybe I want to."

"Will you always be like this?"

"Like what?"

"This stubborn."

Travis mimes thinking about it. He gets soot on his face, and Nolan is maybe gone on him, maybe.

"Yes."

-

The weirdest thing is that things don't change.

The night his family get back is the night they retrace their steps through the house, removing anything that would tip them off Travis had set foot inside. It feels strange and ceremonial, brushing the boot prints that Travis left in the hall away, doing the dishes, double checking all his clothes are getting taken with him.

Almost all of them, anyway. Nolan stubbornly keeps an undershirt indistinguishable from his own.

"You know this covers nothing, right?" Travis says, and digs his finger into the faint bruise on Nolan's throat.

Nolan swats at him ineffectually, but he's also trying not to smile, so he's not sure he comes across as serious as he wants.

"Go."

He'll have to put an actual shirt on he guesses. Damn.

"Hey, I'll bite somewhere else next time."

"I'll hold you to that." Nolan mutters, not actually sure Travis hears until he looks over his shoulder and sees him smirking.

He lets himself be kissed, and then shoves Travis out so that he maintains at least some dignity.

-

Nolan looks at himself in the bathroom mirror later, dusk settling and making him look unduly dramatic.

He pulls at his shirt, collar resting against the faint bruise on his neck. It doesn't hurt persay, but he is hyperaware of it. It makes him feel marked and strange.

Theoretically, it's not anything permanent. It won't stay there, indelible and telling. It won't, but whatever _thing_ this is does feel that way.

He shudders out of nowhere and snaps out of it.

-

Travis does, in fact, bite somewhere lower down the next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone! Let's all pretend I didn't make this into an excuse to write pornography! 🎃🎉

**Author's Note:**

> Things I researched for this: when did paper coffee cups get invented?
> 
> Things I absolutely didn't: how to not be a cliché


End file.
